One day, after my youngest daughter left home, I found myself walking around my favorite Seattle park feeling so lonely, invisible, and unmoored that I thought I might just disappear without anyone noticing.
After COVID, a broken relationship, and decades of being everything everyone needed me to be, I’d been laid off from my job, my kids had moved on, and I felt stuck and unrecognizable to myself.
“Is this it?” I wondered to myself.
It wasn’t just empty nest syndrome. I was clinically depressed. Looking back on a life that didn’t go as planned, I was grieving what could have been and thought my chance to turn things around had long passed. I felt sad, hopeless, and uninspired.
Turning 50 felt like a death sentence at the time.
Then I learned about superagers — people 80 or older with cognitive functioning comparable to an average, middle-aged person, like 100-year old weightlifter Mary Coroneos in Connecticut, who said staying physically active and mentally curious keeps her youthful, and Virginia Oliver, a 104-year-old lobster woman who gets up at 3 a.m. to start her shift on the water in Maine. I wasn’t interested in lifting or lobstering my way to longevity, but just knowing their stories helped me reframe my own future. I could view it as either the edge of a cliff or the start of a new adventure — or maybe a little bit of both.
I asked myself important questions
I started taking long walks in nature and journaling for 30 minutes each day in an old composition notebook. I asked myself tough questions like, who am I when no one needs anything from me? What do I want to do with this next chapter of my life? What’s stopping me?
After more than a decade as a single mom struggling to survive in one of the nation’s most expensive cities, I really wanted to travel.
I found a creative way to travel
Knowing there was no way I could afford even one trip, I decided to try my luck as a housesitter. I found a global housesitting platform linking pet owners with travelers (sitters) who exchange free pet care for free accommodations. It was such a great experience that after a few months, I gave up my Seattle apartment and started driving up and down the West Coast as a slow-traveling house and pet sitter.
I was mainly interested in exploring and saving money and wasn’t expecting to meet homeowners in their 70s and 80s who were setting off on their own adventures, biking through France, hiking the Olympic Mountains, or meditating in California.
In the last two and a half years, I’ve met people decades older than me who are living with a vitality and expansiveness that is the exact opposite of decline. They inspire me to keep exploring and asking myself what’s next.
I’ve become a new version of myself — one that I like a lot more
I was recently featured on my local news for my “unconventional” way of life. It’s hard to believe I’m the same woman who felt so sad and empty just a few years ago.
More importantly, I no longer wake with a pit in my stomach worrying about the future. Instead, I often stay up too late because I’m engrossed in a book, brainstorming a new idea, or planning my next trip. I recently finished a three-month dog sit on a remote Pacific Northwest Island, and will soon be on my way to a five-week dog sit overlooking the San Francisco Bay. After that, I’m off to a five-week cat sit on the beach in Mexico, and another on the Mendocino Coast of California.
My 23-year-old daughter calls my new life “iconic.”
Because why settle for aging gracefully when you can age adventurously?
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